


Bittersweet Symphony

by telemachus



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Reflection, changes and endings, first pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 02:49:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3192446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telemachus/pseuds/telemachus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arwen is, of course, delighted to be at last with child.<br/>Of course she is.<br/>Completely.<br/>Delighted.<br/>After all, it is her choice. <br/>All of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bittersweet Symphony

It is supposed to be a time to take thought for new beginnings.

A joyous time.

The best months of your life.

So they tell me, these mortal women – born to mortality, used and accustomed to its rigours, its harsh necessity.

It does not feel that way to me.

To me, it feels a time of ending.

The end of these long years of waiting.

The end of these days of golden bliss.

The end of the two of us.

The beginning – perhaps it is a beginning – the beginning of his death.

He will not die as most men do – by chance, by illness – he will die as his sires of old died, by choice, at the right time.

That time can only come when there is an heir.

And so this child I carry – our child – the child I longed for – the child I have delayed so many years – this child is the beginning of his father’s death, the death of my husband.

The beginning of the long grief of Arwen, once Evenstar.

The end of the carefree days of our love, of the union of two who hoped, who waited, for so many years. 

The end of all my riding out, my – what did Father used to call them – escapades, that was the word. 

The end of my being able to dart off with my brothers, with my beloved.

I do not dart now. 

I am the Queen, and heavy in my belly I carry the Heir.

I move slowly, carefully. 

I take no risks, I dare not.

He is so concerned – so long has he waited for this. Never have I had the courage to admit to him that – mortal though I may now be – I am yet enough of elfkind that I can choose to bear or not to bear a child.

Surprisingly, my brothers kept silent on this also. Perhaps they do not know. I am never sure what they know.

Perhaps they know too much, read me too well.

Perhaps – I think sometimes it is so – this is an end in their eyes also.

An end of any hope that my choice may be revoked.

An end of all these years when perhaps they have deceived themselves, allowed their hearts to believe that it is all a pretence. That one day, I will laugh, and we three, we three who were born, known for so long, as the peredhel – we three will ride away. Back to our Father’s Valley, and all there will be unchanged.

It is not so.

I will not laugh.

I will not ride away with them.

Many things are changed now in that Valley – but I shall not see the changes.

I shall stay here, with my husband, my beloved, and, soon enough, with my child. 

They two will ride away.

One day, they will ride away, sail away, and I – I will linger on in grief, until the last bitterness of my chosen draught is drained, and I lie down in death.

These months do not feel like a beginning to me.


End file.
